


Tough Guy, Huh?

by DreamedWordsDreamed



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Budding Relationship, Earthbending, Emotional Labor, Explaining Transness, F/F, F/M, Genderqueer Character, M/M, Moving on from saving the world, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:08:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21592807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamedWordsDreamed/pseuds/DreamedWordsDreamed
Summary: After they saved the world, brought peace to the empire, and moved on with their lives Team Avatar is finally starting to settle down, with one notable exception.“Why the hell would I settle down? I’m too busy to settle down!”Toph Beifong really needs a break. Or at least, everyone else thinks so.
Relationships: Aang/Katara (Avatar), Toph Beifong/Original Character(s), Toph Beifong/Sokka
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	Tough Guy, Huh?

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all!
> 
> Thank you for stopping by! Please let me know what you think in the comments, as this is a developing work!
> 
> Cheers,  
> Cass

Listening to the daily clattering, nattering, and idioting of her students was a daily occurrence for Toph Beifong. She lounged at her desk, feeling their movements about the school, and observing them. Forever observing, sometimes she wished she could see if only to be able to see LESS of her students’ lives. 

She’d opened her metalbending school nearly four years ago, and at 17 she was still the greatest earthbender in the world. She picked at her nails in boredom as she felt several of her students approaching, a new person with them. They felt like an earthbender, with steady grounded steps and a flowing gate. She felt them grip the polished stone floors with their toes as they took each step, and grinned widely. This person was careful. She’d shake that out of them quickly enough. 

Just as Ho Tun raised his fist to knock, she shouted, “Enter!” Channeling her imperious nature into her stance, she lounged even farther into her chair and gazed in a way she knew to be disconcerting just over the newcomer’s shoulder. (Sokka had told her enough times that when she tried, her pale gray eyes could seem vacant and laser like at the same time.)

The newcomer bowed low for a moment, and then straightened, but waited for one of her students to speak first. “A respectful one too…” She thought, waiting to see who broke the silence first. 

“Si-fu Toph,” said Ho Tun, nodding his head to her, “This is Zetian, he’s come to us from the Northern Ya province, in the mountains. He hopes to join us, and to learn to noble art of metal bending.” While she listened to this brief introduction, Toph sent the briefest of pulses through the stone towards this Zetian, thinking to get a closer look at him. To her surprise, her wave of movement was met with an equally subtle wave to stop it. 

A slow smirk twisted her fine mouth, morphing her pale heart shaped face into the vapid look to a hunter setting its eyes on worthy prey. “Zetian, you say?” She purred, rolling up into a standing position to move closer to him. Her students parted like the crumbling granite they were as she strolled towards them, slipping out the rice paper doors with a soft click. They knew her well enough to see when the testing was about to begin.

He bowed slightly again, merely inclining his upper body slightly, speaking softly, “Yes, Si-fu Toph.”

Sensing something in his voice, a half truth perhaps, she asked, “But, it’s not your birth name, is it?” She felt his heart skip a beat, and his toes clench the floor. 

“No, Si-fu Toph. But it is my name now. I’ll accept no other.” He replied, his voice soft but with a perceptible edge of steel to it. 

A wide and dangerous smile split Toph’s face as she considered him. Pulling an iron paperweight from her desk into her right hand with a curl of her toes, Toph began to pay with its shape. First a cube, then a sphere, then a hoop, then a dragon complete with a thousand tiny scales. She easily remembered these shapes as they pulsed through her blood, communing with the earth inside the ingots. “Well, you’ll have to prove to me you’re worth my time if you want any respect from me, newbie,” she snorted, and chucked the iron ball at Zetian. 

He fumbled the catch slightly, surprised by her sudden movement, but held it fast once it touched his palms. She could feel his chi reaching into the iron, drifting across the ingots with loosely grasping fingers. She stared him down as he reached into it, picking absently at her rough fingernails as she waited. If he could grasp even one of those ingots, she’d take him on. Initially she’d tried to take on anyone interested in her school, but she’d found that metalbending was an innate skill- you had to have a knack for it. 

After what felt like enough time, Toph huffed, and extended her hand for the iron back. Zetian hadn’t managed to budge even a grain of it, she thought, waiting for the ball to be returned. She flapped her hand in exasperation at him, waiting for him to hand over the little ball. She was ready to tell him off when she felt it, the tiniest shift. The sensation of someone else metalbending so close to her was akin to running the pads of your fingers across a wooden plank and feeling the many grooves until you felt the prick of a splinter. 

A grin split her small face as the iron returned to her hand was a sphere with a small pointed protrusion jutting from its surface. “You pulled it off!” she exclaimed, her grin growing savage as she ran her fingers over the rough little shape. She slapped him hard across the shoulder, which was a bit of a reach as he was at least a head taller than her. “You got any stuff with you? Or are you a minimalist nomad like everybody else these days?” she crowed, already debating where she would store him and how many hours they had left in the day to practice. 

Zetian’s voice was uncertain as he said, “I...I just have this bag with me.” She had sensed the presence of a small knapsack when he entered, and he indicated this now. Its contents were fuzzy to her, so they were likely clothes and papers for the most part. 

“Excellent. We can get started right away then. Follow me, newbie.” She slammed open the sliding doors with a bang, nearly dislodging one of them from its track, and strolled down the hall towards the courtyard where her other students were lounging. She felt them scramble into training positions as she approached, and her mouth twisted into a wicked smirk as she pulled the three of them into the dirt. She heard the thud of their impact as she arrived at the open threshold of the courtyard. It was a large space, at least forty paces wide and another sixty long with a large stone boulders jutting from the dirt around the yard, some obviously having been shaped that way by human hand and others by nature. 

“Well lily livers,” She crowed, stomping meaningfully to bring them free of the earth, “you’ve got new meat in your midst. Zetian will be joining us starting today. He’s about as hopeless as you three, so I’ll be able to teach you all together. Lessons begin now.” She felt her students scrabbling to get into position around the yard, Zetian lingering behind her in uncertainty. Jerking her head towards the pulses of her students’ chi, Toph snapped, “Get out there so I can teach you. Leave your bag up here, or it’ll get dirty.”

Zetian quickly shed his bag and what felt like a coat, and thudded out into the yard, taking a place next to The Dark One. His stance was strong, and deeply rooted into the ground, though perhaps a bit...she couldn’t quite figure what it was about his chi that felt different somehow. Unique from the flow of chi in her other students, and her friends from team Avatar. “On guard!” She bellowed, snapping into a strong form herself. “As you numbskull students already know, you’re here to learn metalbending. But in order for me to teach you how to pull on the tiniest pieces of earth in metal- I need to know how precise your control is currently, and where you stand in terms of performance with your earthbending.” She paused for breath, allowing this to sink in for a moment, then continued evenly, “So, I need you to block my attacks in this first round, then we’ll move on to testing other skills.” To punctuate the end of her sentence, she sent a rolling wave of earth towards the four students with a sharp slide of her foot. With this, she could see how they tangled with environmental changes to their roots, and how they combatted overwhelming momentum. 

The Dark One predictably drilled into the dirt to ride out the wave, letting it flow over him with ease. This allowed him to reposition for an unseen attack, as well to create the illusion of his defeat to his opponent. 

Ho Tun sent several cleaving formations out from himself to break the wave, and did not allow even dust to enter his sphere of influence. A strong stance, leaving him ready to quickly respond while ensuring his stability. 

Penga used her bending to cut the wave around her, allowing it to flow around and past her into the garden where it crashed into several of the great stones. Classic Penga, using her precision to redirect the wave rather than conquer it. 

And Zetian, Zetian reached into the momentum of her wave, took control in order to redirect its entirety back into the ground beneath his feet. Her fingers twitched with interest at that, he’d responded like a waterbender to her wave. He’d let it crest, and when the trough had reached him, he’d displaced the mass back into the earth. All that was left was a soft cloud of dust drifting aimlessly. 

A wicked grin split Toph's face as she narrowed her eyes, this would be interesting.


End file.
